oh take me back to the start
by psychicchameleon
Summary: A series of moments set between Civil War and Infinity War. Peter Parker and Tony Stark centric.
1. What Happened After Germany

**a/n: so this is a new story I'm writing because I'm very sad that** _ **five times Peter Parker didn't call Tony Stark 'dad'**_ **is over and I really enjoyed that but I always felt.. limited? Like I set parameters and I hated that so this is just a collection of loosely related scenes w/ Tony and Pete and I hope y'all like it.**

 **ALSO: for my friends on Tumblr... I recently created a Tumblr (idk what I've been doing all this time) and if y'all wanna go give me a follow, I would literally love you forever. There's not much there right now, but I draw and paint and stuff too and would love another creative outlet w/ my lovely supporters. My username is the same as it is here on FF: psychicchameleon.**

"Are you ever going to tell me what happened after Germany?"

The whirring sound of the welder ceased for a second. Tony lifted up his mask to look at the boy who was across the shop, dry-erase marker in his mouth, writing out calculus problems on the glass wall.

"Kid, what did I tell you about hanging from the ceiling?"

"You're jealous that you can't do it?" he said, using his sleeve to correct an error in his math.

"No."

"That it looks like a lot of fun? Because it is."

"Try again."

Peter pouted his lip. "It leaves footprints on the ceiling."

"Bingo."

The boy flipped himself to the ground, frowning as he looked up at his homework. "It's all upside-down now. I can barely read it."

Tony set the welding gun on the table, stopping to write a few notes. "Good," he said inattentively, "maybe it'll take you more than two minutes to work out the equations and you can feel like a _normal_ kid for once. Who does his homework right-side-up. And hates calculus."

"Hey. You like calc, too."

"Yea, well. It's too late for me to be normal."

Peter rolled his eyes, walking over to sit in the rolling chair next to Tony's. "I know you're avoiding my question."

Tony didn't take his eyes off of the graphics in front of him. "What question?"

The kid rolled his chair around to the other side of the bench, his elbows casually leaning onto the tabletop. His face was shadowed in the blue light of the holographic screen. "The same one I've been asking for weeks now. Ow," he complained, rubbing his forehead after Tony poked it.

"You're in my blueprint."

"I'm trying to get your attention."

"Can you try to get my attention somewhere else?"

Tony rolled his chair away from the table so that he could look at the other side of the suit _and_ avoid the voice that was talking his ear off.

"Mr. Stark—,"

He took a huge breath in, squeezing the tiny screwdriver in his hand until he thought it was going to break.

"What?!"

Peter's eyes shot wide open, taken aback by Tony's red face and flared nostrils, before flitting shyly to the ground. His shoulders rolled forward, hunching over in the backless stool as he stared at his toes.

"Nevermind."

Close to twenty minutes passed, the room silent save for the Aerosmith album playing quietly in the background. Tony kept fiddling with the suit, his hands twitching just a little each time he thought about the look Peter had given him. He opened his mouth, trying to muster up an apology, but it died on his tongue. Instead, he kept to himself, anxiously glancing at the kid periodically.

Another ten minutes went by, meaning Peter hadn't talked in nearly half an hour. It had to be some kind of record. Tony had spent the better part of that time trying reconfigure some wiring, but now he was just absentmindedly cutting and twisting the copper connections. His hands moved in a mechanical rhythm, unconsciously, because his thoughts were focused a million miles away.

Well, maybe more like a couple feet away. On a brown-haired kid doing homework in the corner.

Every time Tony looked over he was huddled over his textbook, spinning his chair gently from side to side and distractedly tapping a pencil against the table. He didn't look up from his book once.

Tony was going to make it up to him. He'd add those roller blade things (what did Peter call them, Heelys?) into a suit. Peter had been begging for them for weeks now, but Tony said they were impractical.

 _Who cares about practical. He's a kid. If it makes him happy he can have the damn shoe wheels._

Maybe he'd get him an ice cream, or take him to a movie, or let him drive one of the horribly expensive cars collecting dust in the garage. That would work, right? Kids like that kind of stuff, don't they?

He made a mental note to ask FRIDAY or Google or Pepper later: _how to say sorry without actually having to say sorry_. Tony pondered for a second, then added: _how to make a teenager not hate you._

The consistent tapping of Peter's pencil ceased, prompting Tony to snap out of his daze.

"AH—," he screamed, nearly falling over in his chair.

Startled by Tony's loud reaction, Peter let a small squeal of his own before quickly composing himself.

"Sh, Mr. Stark, it's just me," he said gently, hanging from the ceiling by a thin rope of webbing.

"Jesus Christ—what in God's name are you _doing_?"

Peter cocked an eyebrow, still dangling in front of Tony's face. "Well, I tried the whole 'silent treatment' thing but that didn't work, so I went with plan B."

"Which was try and give me a heart attack? And for the love of—can you get down now?"

The boy smiled sheepishly before attempting to casually flip onto the floor, but his T-shirt gave way and draped over his face.

"Oof," he muttered, dropping to the floor in a tangled mess of web and nerdy science fabric.

"I'm going to do us both a favor and pretend that didn't happen."

Tony reached down to help him up, and the kid jumped to his feet.

"I knew that would work," he said, a stupid grin plastered across his face as he brushed himself off. "So, now that you're finally paying attention to me, are you gonna finally tell me what went down with Captain America?"

"Nothing happened."

"Then how come Mr. Rhodes and I are the only Avengers that are ever here?"

Tony sighed, playing with the tools sitting on his workbench to avoid Peter's prying stare.

"First, kid, you're not an Avenger—you're a trainee on a good day. That was your choice, and I fully agree with that. And second, Cap just decided he needed a break. From me. Call it... irreconcilable differences," his face twisted into a sad, rueful smile, "and the kids went with him."

When Tony had taken Peter home after Berlin, he'd assured him that everything would be okay. There was still hope Tony's his eyes.

" _I'm sorry we lost, Mr. Stark."_

" _Don't worry about it. He's my problem, not yours. And he'll come around. You just worry about that homework."_

But nearly six months had passed and Captain America hadn't come back. Neither had many of the others. That small, hopeful light in Tony's eyes had dimmed into defeat.

"I thought you guys were friends."

A flat, drained laugh escaped Tony. "You and me both, kid."

Peter's face fell, almost imperceptibly, but Tony noticed. He knew that feeling. Peter Parker, shy but proud owner of Captain America pajamas and a replica shield, was beginning to see a side of Steve Rogers he had never known.

But as much as Steve had hurt Tony—and the hurt was still fresh and raw and utterly consuming—as much as he needed someone else to shoulder even a _fraction_ of the anti-hero part he had played for so long, when he looked into the kid's eyes—he couldn't do it. Peter already had to come to grips with the flawed and messy reality that was Tony Stark. He didn't need to see him lose Steve Rogers too.

At the end of the day, Steve might have cut him in a way that he never saw coming, but he still hadn't forgotten the reason the whole mess started in the first place. He wanted to keep the Avengers together, not just to save the world. He needed them.

 _We all need a family. The Avengers are yours, maybe more so than mine._

Tony knew better than anyone that families aren't all they're cracked up to be.

But he also knew better than anyone that it was damn hard to give up on them.

"Sometimes the world forgets that, behind these masks and alter-egos and gaudy, god-awful costumes, there are people just trying to do the best they can in a job no one else wanted."

"You don't blame Mr. Rogers for the Sokovia Accords?"

Tony took a deep, labored breath.

"The Accords were a shit show with no perfect solution, that's politics. I did what I thought would protect the people I care about. Rogers did too. He can pretend to be the super soldier all day, but deep down he's still the scrappy kid from Brooklyn who lost his best friend a long time ago and will do whatever it takes to never feel that again."

Tony closed his eyes, remembering the haunting look on Steve's face as he bled out in the dream induced by Wanda. He felt that pressing need to do more—to do _anything_ to save him.

"I know what that feels like," he murmured. "Heroes make mistakes, kid, it's part of the job. We continue to believe in them anyway, we have to, because the second we don't... I—none of us should live in a world like that. People like me will always need people like Steve Rogers."

Peter stopped pressing. Mr. Stark would give him more information, if he wanted to, on his own terms. Right now, it only mattered that Tony Stark still believed Captain America was a hero—a man worth protecting—and that was enough for him.

Tony Stark would always believe in Steve Rogers.

And Peter Parker would always believe in Tony Stark.

One day, he might just get Tony to believe in himself, too.


	2. What the Fuck

**a/n: I've written a post-May-finding-out-about-Spider-Man fic before, but this one is a little different, and a little more raw. I wanted to explore some of the insecurities I think May might have, and I really like the idea of May and Tony kind of starting out in this rocky place but eventually understanding one another and maybe even being... friends? Idk. We'll see.**

"What the fuck?!"

Peter turned around slowly, wincing and praying to God that May was screaming because she'd dropped boiling water everywhere again.

No luck.

"Ha—um.. hi—hey, May. What're—what's...," he sputtered, waving his arms around to try to calm her, but the flashes of red and blue fabric just riled her up even more, like a bull to a matador.

"You're... no, you can't be, there's... _no,_ " her eyebrows were halfway up her forehead and her jaw dropped like a dead weight to the floor.

"May I can explain," he tried.

"Oh my god. Oh my _god_. I'm so stupid."

"May, please don't freak out," he pleaded, but her head was spinning, spouting off words at an incomprehensible pace.

"I... I don't... I thought we didn't keep secrets. Sneaking out all the time... bruises, black eyes... the decathlon..." as pieces of the puzzle clicked into place in her brain, a dark shadow crossed her face, "...the Stark internship."

His eyes went wide. "May," he interjected, "I can explain." He reached for her again, steadying his shaking hand in a fumbling attempt to get her to slow down, but she recoiled at his touch.

"He knows, doesn't he? He's known this whole time."

"May," Peter breathed, terrified at the fury emanating from her face. He'd never seen her like this.

She didn't back down. Her speech was thin, punctuated after every word. "Peter Benjamin Parker, does Tony Stark know about this?"

He pulled at his hair and looked up to the ceiling. It was enough of an answer for her.

May grabbed her keys off the counter.

"Where—," he started.

"You are not to leave this apartment, and you'd better get to thinking up a damn good explanation because we are going to have a _long_ talk about this when I get back."

She was out the door before Peter's mouth could even stutter a protest.

For Tony Stark, there were two types of being scared for your life.

One he was very familiar with. It was that overwhelming knock-you-on-your-ass fear that kicked in when an army of villains showed up to a party when he'd only gotten one RSVP. That slow, sinking sense of powerlessness when his suit was failing, his mind flitting to the few people he loved as he prepared for the worst.

The second one was new. It was May Parker, wearing denim overalls over a rusted red turtleneck that matched the color of her face with burgundy lipstick and the words, "we need to talk," on her lips.

He wasn't in the suit for this one—just a pair of pajamas. Gray joggers and a Tom Petty T-shirt. They were warm, soft, and incredibly vulnerable to the walking incarnation of anger that had just shown up on his doorstep.

He let her into the dark compound, holding the door open for her as she stormed in and took a seat on his couch, one leg crossed over the other. Her elbows rested neatly on her knees, her face sitting gently on her interlocked fingers, perfectly poised. Seething.

"Sit," she commanded, and Tony didn't waste a second.

He took the seat across from her, fiddling with the edges of his Tom Petty T-shirt. When she didn't say anything, he did.

"So, not that I'm complaining, but you don't really seem like the spur-of-the-moment late-night rendezvous type."

She bit her upper lip in an act that might've been seductive if it hadn't been horribly predatory.

Tony kept rambling.

"I know we had a moment with the walnut-date loaf—superb, by the way—but I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and really commit to this engagement thing and I'm on a pretty tight leash. Don't get me wrong, though, ten years ago this would've been right up my alley."

He tried to smirk at her, but it couldn't mask the aura of terror radiating off of him.

"I don't like secrets, Tony."

"Most people don't."

"And I've never been a big fan of you."

"I'd argue that you're in the majority on that, too." The corner of his lip turned down as he did all he could to withstand her fiery glare, but it was like looking directly into the sun.

May didn't let him go, she looked straight through his pupils and right into his soul. She wanted him to _melt._ "Do you have any _idea_ what I want to do to you right now?"

He thought about dropping the façade right then and there, his dwindling sense of self-preservation begging to just be sacrificed to the slaughter, but his mouth was on autopilot.

"No... but is it bad that I kind of want to find out?"

Tony waggled his eyebrows in a wholly inappropriate gesture, desperately trying to conceal the fact that his heart was racing like he'd just finished a triathlon.

He figured that this day would come. He was positive that May Parker had found something out about Peter's second life, that she wouldn't drive to upstate New York sans Peter if it wasn't to wring him like a towel.

But he couldn't give in quite yet. He was dancing, evading her questions because he didn't know what to tell her. He had no idea how much she knew, didn't know how to explicate whatever it was she _did_ know. And he definitely didn't know how to justify himself for keeping her from knowing all this time.

"Stop! Just _stop_ with the shameless playboy bit!" Her words were clipped and raised, something just short of screaming.

Tony gulped. "I'm not-," he began, but May was leaning onto the coffee table now, fully violating his delicate bubble of space.

"Save it. I'm a lot older than I look, believe it or not, and I've seen it all. I _know_ when a man is full of shit, so stop cowering behind the half-assed innuendos and actually have an adult conversation with me for once."

He finally broke her hard stare and dropped his eyes to the floor. "What do you want me to say?"

She pondered for a second, and her eyes softened from a look that was sharp enough to stab him into something that was heartbreakingly broken.

"I want you to say that I'm wrong. I want you to say that this is all some huge, terrible joke that went too far, that my kid was just wearing a dumb Halloween costume and I jumped to conclusions," her face twisted into a cynical smile, "but that's not the truth, is it?"

It wasn't a question, he knew. May Parker knew everything—knew that he'd kept a monumental secret from her for months.

"Ms. Parker," Tony tried, a million explanations simultaneously running through his brain, but none of them seemed good enough for the woman sitting in front of him.

"Don't 'Ms. Parker' me."

"I should've told you."

"That's an understatement. You took my kid out of the country, let him get mixed up in superhero nonsense and practically funded the vigilantism of _a minor_. I should _hate_ you."

Her face contorted into a pressed smile and her eyes were so red that he couldn't tell whether she was furious or about to cry. Perhaps it was both.

"But do you want to know a secret, Tony? You're not the person I hate most in this room right now."

Tony bit at the inside of his cheek. "May, don't do that."

She pressed her lips together and took a sharp, hissing breath in through her teeth. "He and Ben were always so close. I was never jealous of that, because they were my two boys and _of course_ Peter would tell Ben things that he couldn't tell me. But I just—after he passed, I tried so hard to get Peter to open up to me, because Ben was always his confidant and I didn't want him to feel like he had to keep everything bottled up now that he was gone. I just wanted him to trust me. I hate that he feels like he can't trust me."

"That's not true."

Her eyes had drifted to the floor at some point during her monologue. When she finally pulled them up, the corners were smudged with wet traces of mascara.

"He told you not to tell me, right?"

Tony didn't have the heart to answer her.

"Right?" Her voice was louder and more desperate this time.

"He didn't want you to worry."

May laughed. "And look where that got us. I'm supposed to take care of him, not the other way around."

There were many things in life that Tony Stark was good at. Engineering. Mechanics.

Clearing a guilty conscience was never one of them. His own had haunted him for years. But he had to try.

"If there's one thing I've learned about your nephew it's that he doesn't really do the whole 'leave it to the adults' thing. You can't blame yourself for being in the dark. I should've told you from the beginning."

May shook her head.

"I've lived with him for twelve years. I should've known something was up—I shouldn't have _needed_ you to tell me. I'm his guardian, for God's sake. I should have _known._ Tell me, Tony, how can I not blame myself for that?"

He looked her right in the eyes, took a breath, and went for it.

"Your nephew got bit by a radioactive spider and developed the ability to climb walls. His body underwent a complete metamorphosis that gave him enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, and healing powers.

"Do you realize how absurd that sounds? Maybe if Peter had joined a gang and started selling drugs on the street and you were completely oblivious— _maybe_ that's on you. But there is not a person in this world whose first guess when their kid comes home past curfew should be that they're raising a crime-fighting spider. And if it is, then that person belongs in a psych ward.

"Cut yourself some slack. Peter didn't tell you because he knew you'd act like a rational adult that loves him and make him stop fighting bad guys after school. It's not because he doesn't trust you."

May was silent for a few minutes.

"You know, I didn't expect the conversation to go like this. I was really expecting to yell a lot more."

Tony sighed, an empty smile on his lips. "There's still time."

"You might want to think about getting out of town before that time comes."

They were silent for a beat again, and she wrapped her arms around herself.

"He's going to hate me if I take the suit away, isn't he?"

"I don't think that kid has the ability to hate anything. He might go all teenage angst and rebellion on you, though. You can take the kid out of the suit, but you can't take the vigilante out of the kid. I've tried."

She dropped her head into her hands. "Where do we go from here?"

"We?" He'd been expecting this conversation for a while, and while he didn't know how it would go, he'd always assumed that it would be his last conversation with May Parker. He figured he would be the last person she'd ever want to see again.

"Don't think I'm letting you off that easy. You helped get him into this mess, and now you're going to help me deal with it. Think of it like co-parenting. Except you're more like a consultant." She smirked. "God, if I ever dreamed about having a kid with Tony Stark, this was not what I imagined."

Tony was still taken aback. "Are you sure about this?"

"Tony, the first rule of parenting is that you do right by your kid, even if it means making sacrifices. You made mistakes, and I'm sure the day will come soon where I rip you a new one for those, but right now I need your help. Don't get me wrong—I can handle the single mom thing. The superhero business is a little out of my league, though, so I'm willing to move on if you are."

She reached her hand across the open space, looking at him expectantly. He shook it.

"Alright, I'm going to need every phone number you can think of. If this is going to work, we need to communicate. If you know something, I need to know it too. Especially if said thing involves Peter's well-being. Got it?"

Tony nodded.

"And lastly, I need a drink. Preferably a double."

The situation wasn't ideal. Her kid was a lovable dork by day and a masked vigilante by night, and her best bet at dealing with that was working with the least parental man she'd ever met.

But then again, nothing about May Parker's life had ever been ideal.

She'd make it work.

She always did.


End file.
